Welcome

Medication support and administration are routine tasks in adult social care, but they require attention and care. A missed or incorrect dose, unclear records, rushed handover, unsafe storage or an unreported error can harm a person's health, dignity and trust.

This course is for care assistants, senior carers, support workers, team leaders, supervisors, night staff and other frontline care staff in residential care homes, nursing homes, supported living and adult social care settings. It is a frontline practical course, not a prescribing, nursing or pharmacy qualification. It focuses on what care staff need to check, record and escalate within their role.

This is a UK-wide course. It uses NICE, CQC and NHS Specialist Pharmacy Service guidance as the main detailed practice sources because they set out clear medicines standards for care homes and community support. Some sources apply specifically to England, so staff in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland must follow their own regulator, local health board or HSC trust arrangements, employer policy and current national guidance.

Four-nations medicines note

Why This Course Matters

• Medicines are personal: the right support depends on the person's prescription, care plan, preferences, capacity, risks and communication needs.
• Records protect people: clear MAR or eMAR entries help prevent duplicate or missed doses, unsafe changes and confusion across shifts.
• Role boundaries matter: staff should only give medicines support that is agreed, documented, delegated where necessary and within competence.
• Refusal needs respect and escalation: a person with capacity can refuse medicines; repeated refusal, fluctuating capacity or high-risk treatment requires senior or clinical review.
• Learning culture prevents harm: errors, near misses and omitted doses should be reported and reviewed, not hidden.

How This Course Will Help You

By the end of the course you should be able to support people with medicines safely, apply the 6 Rs, use MAR or eMAR records correctly, respond to refusal, manage PRN and time-sensitive medicines, recognise controlled drug and covert administration limits, avoid unsafe medicine alteration, store medicines securely, escalate errors and communicate clearly with nurses, GPs, pharmacists, families and hospital teams.

A Simple Medicines Safety Spine

• Check: person, medicine, dose, route, time and the person's right to decline.
• Confirm: care plan, label, MAR or eMAR, allergies, recent changes and whether the dose has already been given.
• Support: explain, offer respectfully, use agreed aids and give only within your role and competence.
• Record: document promptly and accurately for each medicine or agreed support action.
• Escalate: refusals, errors, adverse effects, missing medicines, unclear instructions and concerns about capacity or safety.